Wayne man guilty of aggravated manslaughter in grandmother's slaying

A Wayne man was acquitted of murder but was convicted of aggravated manslaughter Tuesday in the killing of his 85-year-old grandmother three years ago.

Mark Dubas also was acquitted of armed robbery and criminal weapons possession, but a judge found him guilty of theft and possession of heroin in the March 31, 2011, incident in which he was accused of fatally stabbing Barbara Tyzbir when she refused to give him money for drugs.

Dubas broke into tears as state Superior Court Judge Raymond Reddin, sitting in Paterson, announced the verdict. Reddin, who conducted the non-jury trial after Dubas waived his right to be tried by a jury, revoked Dubas’ bail after the verdict and ordered him held at the Passaic County Jail until his sentencing on July 25.

Dubas, 27, faces 10 to 30 years in prison, instead of a maximum life term that he could have received for a murder conviction.

“I think it was an extraordinarily well-reasoned decision by the judge,” defense attorney Jon Iannaccone said later. “This was obviously a very emotional case.”

Robert Pringle, the senior assistant prosecutor who tried the case, declined to comment.

Pringle said during the trial that Dubas entered Tyzbir’s home in Clifton and started an altercation while the woman was cooking. He eventually punched Tyzbir, chased her into a boiler room and repeatedly stabbed her with a steak knife and a pair of scissors, he said.

Dubas then ransacked Tyzbir’s home, stole jewelry and took off in her car before he was arrested the following morning, Pringle said.

Iannaccone, meanwhile, argued that Dubas was a longtime heroin user with a history of disorders going back to childhood. Several months before Tyzbir’s killing, Dubas was prescribed the powerful anti-depressant drug, Prozac, which made him suicidal and worsened his mental problems, he said. Iannaccone said Dubas was under the influence of heroin and Prozac at the time of the killing and could not have had the “knowing or purposeful” state of mind necessary to commit murder.

He said Dubas had a loving relationship with his grandmother, often helped her around the house and never even got into an argument with her. That he killed her so violently is evidence that he was not in his right mind, he said.

Pringle countered, arguing that Dubas was caught on surveillance camera shortly after the killing as he entered a Walmart store and showed no signs of intoxication. He also drove the car he stole from his grandmother without any problems, and he lied to investigators when he was questioned the next day, telling them that a stain on his pants was tomato sauce and not blood. Such calculating behavior was evidence that he knew what he was doing, Pringle argued.

Reddin, however, ruled on Tuesday that based on the evidence, including the expert testimony he heard during the trial about the effects of Prozac, he felt there was reasonable doubt as to whether Dubas acted purposefully or knowingly.

“That was not the cognitive brain of Mark Dubas that chased his grandmother and viciously stabbed her in the throat,” Reddin said. “It was the malfunction in the neurons of his brain that caused this to happen.”

Reddin followed a similar argument in acquitting Dubas of the armed robbery and weapons charges, but found that Dubas had cooled off enough to know what he was doing by the time he stole Tyzbir’s jewelry and car and possessed heroin.